Review: Hail, Caesar! (2016)

* * *
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Starring: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Channing Tatum, Alden Ehrenreich, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton

Good news and bad news. The good news is that Hail, Caesar!, which finds the Coen brothers in a loosey goosey kind of mood, is a treat for movie nerds, it's such an affectionately crafted paean to 1950s Hollywood and the moment when the old Hollywood started to fall away and make room for the new. The bad news is that, once you see it, you'll find yourself longing for full length versions of the Coen brothers' take on the Esther Williams swim and song movie, the singing cowboy B-movie, the swords and sandals biblical epic, and the Gene Kelly song and dance movie. Hail, Caesar is more a series of fun vignettes than anything, but when it's this entertaining it hardly matters that the plot is all dangling threads held together by the vague notion that the protagonist is experiencing a dark night of the soul.

Review: Magic Mike XXL (2015)

* *
Director: Gregory Jacobs
Starring: Channing Tatum

I didn't have particularly big expectations for Magic Mike XXL - I thought the original film was fine, better than I expected, but by no means great - but I still emerged a bit disappointed by it, not to mention suffering from cognitive dissonance given the number of articles that have been written about how "feminist" the film is. It's not a terrible film, and if all you're looking for in a movie is the display of well-sculpted abs (and one magnificent Twilight joke), then Magic Mike XXL may very well deliver for you. Personally, I thought that parts of it were great, campy fun and other parts of it were so boring that I found myself repeating the immortal, desperate cry of Milhouse van Houten, wondering when the story was going to get to the fireworks factory. The film takes the form of a road movie, and in that respect it takes a lot of diversions and they aren't always especially interesting. But, hey, abs, right?

Review: Jupiter Ascending (2015)

* *
Director: Andy & Lana Wachowski
Starring: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum

There are many accusations you might level at the Wachowskis as filmmakers, but you can't ever accuse them of not being ambitious. Even their worst movie (*cough*Speed Racer*cough*) at least gives the sense that it's trying to do something, that it wants to break new ground and open up new vistas. But while their best films (The Matrix, Bound, and, at least in my opinion, Cloud Atlas) manage to accomplish their goals in a way that feels, if not necessarily effortless, then in such a way that the mechanics of putting the production together can't be heard groaning beneath every scene, their worst films are ones in which the story gets lost amid their attempts to create complex mythology and their focus on the look and effects of the project. Jupiter Ascending is a film with a lot of ideas - some of them good! - but it rarely manages to fold those ideas into the story in a way that makes them seem flush with each other. Instead the film is a work that starts and stops and starts and stops as it drags the weight of its leaden exposition, which takes up so much of the film's dialogue.

Review: Foxcatcher (2014)

* * *
Director: Bennett Miller
Starring: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo

Many "true crime" stories attempt to provide some sort of answer to the question of why the crime took place. Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher takes a different approach, merely observing that the crime took place without trying to make it part of a neat, clean narrative. Context does not make it any less senseless, which of course makes it all the more bizarre and intriguing. There are no easy answers in Foxcatcher, just a story of how a confluence of disparate issues - from how neither wealth nor success can necessarily prevent someone from becoming alienated from everyone around them, to how wealth can inspire society to indulge behavior that would otherwise be unacceptable, and how the easily commodifiable patriotism of international sport ends up leaving the actual athletes behind - created an atmosphere where tragedy seems almost inescapable.

Review: 22 Jump Street (2014)

* * *
Director: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum

There is no reason at all that 21 Jump Street should have worked the way that it did. At best, it should have been a marginally funny but sort of forgettable way to kill an hour and forty minutes, the sort of movie you watch if it comes on TV and there's nothing else on. Instead it was pretty much awesome, setting a bar for television to film adaptations that is almost impossibly high. Magic happened with the first film, so what were the chances of the follow-up, 22 Jump Street, being anything but an utter disappointment? I don't know what the odds were exactly, but I know that somehow the team behind the franchise has found a way to make lightning strike twice. 22 Jump Street is a great summer movie, an entertainment of the very first order.

Review: Side Effects (2013)

* * * 1/2
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Channing Tatum

“It’s the culture,” one character insists. He’s referring to the financial corporate culture which resulted in what he hopes is his temporary exile, but the line just as easily applies to other aspects of the world Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects explores. It’s a world where there is a magic pill for every ailment, a first resort pushed by medical professionals who have a vested financial interest in ensuring that the pills become a part of the fabric of everyday life. It’s a world where everyone is out for him or herself and will find a way to justify the most extreme actions in the name of self-interest and preservation. Soderbergh’s final film – a genre bender which at various times takes the shape of a thriller, a medical drama, and a courtroom drama – is a good one, which is not only well-crafted but contains hidden depths.

Review: Magic Mike (2012)

* * *
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey

A plot point by plot point description of Magic Mike would make it sound like a basic backstage performance story, where a wide-eyed tyro is taken under the wing of a solid mentor, and everything is fun until suddenly it isn't so much fun anymore. Fortunately for the film, it is helmed by Steven Soderbergh, a director with enough strength of craftsmanship that he can take well-worn genre notes and make them sing like new. This isn't to say that Magic Mike is a brilliant piece of work, but it's a solid enough drama, and a fairly entertaining one at that.